Abstract: The article analyzes the emergence of the Science Citation Index (SCI) and argues that the concept of citation indexing was not a “naturalâ€? outgrowth of the scientific field. It originated in the area of US legal publish-ing and information services, and was translated into a scientific reference service by an information entrepreneur, Eugene Garfield. The actual creation of the Science Citation Index and the subsequent development of the field of scientometrics were strongly shaped by the political and technological context of the late 1950s –early 1960s. The way the US responded to the Sputnik crisis and the Soviet challenge provided the opportunity for Garfield to build the Science Citation Index in close cooperation with the Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg and to gain the legitimacy that his project previously lacked.
Publication Year: 2006
Publication Date: 2006-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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